Silver And Iron
by Chokopoppo
Summary: Nobody needed Agents before The Problem started. But time passes. The world has grown more dangerous. Saitama might need a third member for his team, after all.
1. Prologue

No one knows exactly why The Problem started, or when. It was…maybe fifty years ago? Or maybe sixty? It had all blurred together.

There were things that people _did_ know, of course - The Problem had started in Europe, and spread like some kind of infectious disease through surrounding areas, sprouting suddenly in other countries. It hadn't fully engulfed the planet until about twenty years ago, and there were lucky areas of the world where it was weak. Small islands were usually safer than mainland continents, as long as you didn't swim out too far - anywhere with fewer people had less of a problem with The Problem.

City Z had once been densely populated. Now, huge sections of it had emptied out, leaving only thin veins of citizens too poor to run and too scared to fight. It was, all told, the perfect place to have an agency - plenty of work, peace and quiet, very few iron bells or ghost lamps still functioning, cheap rent - just so long as you weren't afraid of ghosts. Which was probably why _The Accidental Team_ had proudly holed up in an old apartment building on the sparsely populated side of town.

It wasn't an eloquent name, or an eloquent business, but frankly, it wasn't an eloquent job, either - agents who spent time trying to look good for publicity stunts were often on the weaker side of the spectrum. The Accidental Team, on the other hand, had practically no clients, but it _did_ , to its credit, have Saitama.

xx

The team had once been a full set, a solid three agents - now, it was just down to Saitama and Mumen. More often than not, Saitama took jobs on his own - but it was always nice to be in a pair, Saitama thought, glancing sideways at his partner as they stood on the doorstep. On the one hand, there was no one he could rely on to do their best if not Mumen, and on the other, he hated talking to clients like the one scowling down at him from behind the door.

"I was told I would be receiving Agents hand-picked by Bang Silverfang," she said, eyes narrowed.

"Yeah, that's us," Saitama replied blandly, "so can we come in? These bags are kind of heavy."

If possible, her eyes narrowed more. The woman was old, her face a mass of wrinkled skin and generalized contempt, her hair thin and white. "You don't _look_ like Agents," she said, eying them cautiously. It was true - Agents were typically known for their smart black uniforms, turtlenecks and flapping coats and rapiers hanging at the hip. Saitama was wearing a yellow tracksuit. Mumen was in neoprene silver riding shorts. Not, Mumen had to admit, the most _professional_ garb. Still, he had a lot of practice with smoothing ruffled feathers and greasing wheels where Saitama would just kick a bird over and knock the car onto its side. He elbowed his partner gently in the side and took over.

"Part of our special charm as Agents in the field is our _discretion_ ," Mumen supplied helpfully, "we don't go to our jobs _looking_ like Agents - to protect the privacy of our clients."

She studied him carefully, sizing him up, before rolling her eyes and opening the door. "Come inside," she said, a little more coldly than either of the boys thought was really necessary, "and wipe your shoes off on the mat, I don't want mud on this floor. I _just_ had it cleaned."

The floor didn't _look_ like it had just been cleaned. Nothing in the house did. Saitama was reminded of their kitchen in the combination apartment-office - dust in the air, corners crowded with dirt, piles upon piles of books on paper on odd knickknacks sprouting up on every surface like toadstools. Still, he wasn't one to criticize - cleaning up was boring, and hard - and it didn't look like the old lady had anyone to help her out with it. Heads down, they both followed her into the kitchen to press for details.

xx

Silver and iron are the most powerful defenses against ghosts, followed shortly by salt, fire, running water, and lavender. The typical Agent carries fifty feet of iron chain, one iron rapier, three canisters of salt, one silver-glass container, and, if money will permit, two magnesium bombs. Some Agents also carry silver bladed (or silver-tipped) rapiers, salt-guns, lavender bombs, and personal defensive silver jewelry. Every piece of equipment has its own use, and most will be used at every job without exception.

There are three basic types of Agents, classified by their specialty - Sight, Touch, and Hearing. These abilities are inborn, natural, unattainable by those born without them, and allow Agents to interact with ghosts beyond superficial knowledge of their presence. Only children can become Agents - the older an Agent becomes, the weaker their power, until it disappears entirely at nineteen or twenty years old. Former Agents often work at their old agencies, or create new ones, recruiting the young for the difficult - but rewarding - task of hunting, catching, and destroying the dead.

xx

Mumen and Saitama sat in silence, drinking tea as the daylight slipped away through the window. The client, like all clients, had practically run for the hills as soon as the sun had tinted slightly, hurrying to safety at her sister's house and leaving the two boys sitting peaceably at the kitchen table.

"From what she said, it sounds kind of vengeful," Mumen said, more to break the silence than anything else, "what do you think it is? Type two?"

"Nah, can't be," Saitama said, flipped the page of the comic book he was reading, "she said she just left it for like a month before it really started being trouble. If it was a type two, I don't think she could've ignored it."

"Maybe she couldn't afford to pay for Agents," Mumen replied, "it doesn't seem like she has a lot of money - this place is really small."

They considered this in silence for a moment. "Well, at any rate, we won't know until dark," Saitama said eventually, "so we shouldn't bother about worrying about it. Make sure you have your chains ready just in case. More tea?"

The pot had boiled peacefully, and Mumen always brought tea bags with him on haunts. Sometimes, comfort items - tea, books, jewelry, makeup - were just as important as iron chains or salt. They kept Agents sane. Against ghosts, that was nothing to shrug off or laugh about or leave behind. A clear head was the most important tool an Agent had, more than silver, more than fancy swords or guards. Armed with nothing but a clear head, an Agent might survive the night against even a formidable foe. But sanity was hard to keep. Tea was important.

xx

There are four main types of psychic attacks used by ghosts against humans. These are Miasma, Chill, Creeping Fear, and Malaise. On top of this, Type Two ghosts can also instigate Ghost-Lock and Ghost-Touch.

Chill and Creeping Fear are self-explanatory - a drop in temperature, an instinctive flare of terror - but Miasma and Malaise are different, harder to classify. Miasma can best be classified as a loss of perception, a fog in the brain, a cloudy, psychic blindness - a blur of emotions and thoughts and vision, whirling and confusing and dizzy. Perhaps Malaise is the hardest to describe of all, and the hardest to fight against - an oppressive, suffering well of nothingness rising up to course through the entire body. Weakness of mind, slowness of presence, an inability to function or smile or think or feel. Darkness of the soul.

There are a multitude of different kinds of ghosts, but they fall into three basic type categories. Colloquially referred to as Tiger, Demon, and Dragon, but formally as simply Type Ones, Type Twos, and Type Threes respectively, these classifications help to define what Agents might need to rid the space of them, or if Agents are needed at all.

Type One (Tiger) ghosts are, while capable of doing harm, typically weaker spirits, unable to directly attack humans, and weaker Tiger ghosts barely appear even on the astral plane. The ones that do often only hold the form of gently glowing light, or bare memories of who they were as humans. They are very rarely aggressive, and will often stay in a single spot, or move only barely, pacing in place. Some will attempt to approach humans, sensing and desiring the life in them, but few will ever get too close.

Type Two (Demon) ghosts are far more dangerous - usually emotional, sorrowful or vengeful spirits, trying to right a wrong from their life. Many will seek out and hunt down humans, hungry for life, and attack them directly with either Ghost-Lock (a nasty form of terrifying paralysis), or, worse, with Ghost-Touch. The result of being touched directly by a ghost sends humans into a nasty bout of anaphylactic shock, and requires a shot of adrenaline and immediate medical attention to survive.

However, it is always soothing to remember that ghosts are not smart - indeed, they have no minds or brains to speak of. They are nothing but memories, haunting their own source, stuck in repetitive thoughts, motions, feelings. They might speak or cry, but they cannot create rational thought - their words are words said at their death, a single, powerful feeling manifesting itself into language only superficially. Ghosts cannot think.

Except for Type Threes.

xx

Mumen checked the circle he'd made with his iron chains around his feet - no weak spots - and started to take the temperature. Already, only an hour after sundown, the temperature had dropped from 23 C down to 18 C. Hopefully, the only thing the little beast in the house could do was chill.

In the next room, footboards gently creaking, he could hear Saitama wandering around, humming off-key. Silently, Mumen wished his friend would stop being so nonchalant when they were on jobs, but that attitude had never gotten the two of them into trouble before, so he kept his mouth shut and recorded temperature in his notebook. There were an awful lot of spiders in the kitchen, he'd noticed earlier - one on the wall whenever he glanced sideways - but the room seemed clean in comparison now. At first, he'd hoped that their client was just unhygienic - but unfortunately, this didn't seem to be the case.

More creaking footsteps - then the door to the next room, gliding open. Mumen didn't bother to glance up. "All done in there, then?" He asked, then added "11:45 PM, 18-C, early drop."

"Nah, I have a couple more things I wanna check. This lady really needs to clean up."

"Why'd you come out, then?"

"What? I'm still in here."

Mumen glanced up at the door. "Oh," he said, and then, "ah." And then, maybe sensing this wasn't enough, added "well, I found the ghost, anyway."

The ghost was floating maybe two feet off the ground, hair gently scraping and drifting against the ceiling. Even with his weak sight, Mumen could make her out quite clearly - faded in shades of grey and eerie white, the long, hanging sleeves of her ornately decorated kimono billowing gently as though in the wind. Her head, while above her shoulders, was not attached to her head - she held it between two hands, up and forward, like a lantern on a cold night. The face was contorted into a shape of fear and sorrow.

It made his heart hurt, to see ghosts like this one - so clearly sad, so oppressively quiet even in the din of the world - but he also felt relieved. "She's a Floating Bride," he called into the other room. A Tiger ghost. Nothing they hadn't handled before, nothing they couldn't handle now.

Still - it didn't make sense. Floating Brides weren't known for being particularly vengeful, or even aggressive. And why would there even be one here in City Z? Floating Brides were always very old, weak spirits - from the style of her dress, she was probably two or three hundred years old at least - the tsunokakushi on her head, through which her hair floated through and above, was ornately styled. "Have you found the source?" Mumen called, after a moment of silence. "Something's off about her. I don't know what."

"Uh," Saitama said, poking his head through the door. "Is it that she's wearing a tsunokakushi with a furisode kimono?"

"Oh," Mumen said, and then, "oh, shit."

"'Oh, shit' is right," Saitama agreed, pulling his red gloves on and almost up to his elbows. "You know, there's not _much_ in that room that isn't junk," he went on conversationally, even as the ghost's mouth began to gape, "but I _did_ see a decorative uchikake hanging on the wall. I don't think it was old enough, though."

The ghost's body turned slowly to face Saitama. ' _My day…'_ she said, voice ringing in between the sides of his skull, ' _my day…'_

"That's right, it's your day," Saitama agreed, nodding carefully. There were no chains around him or slung over his shoulders. He had no belt around his skinny waist, no rapier, no magnesium flares, not even salt or lavender. But then, Saitama never did. Saitama never carried anything with him. He flexed his fingers experimentally within his gloves to tense squeaking sounds. "But was it hers? Who's day was it?" His eyes narrowed. "Not your older sister's, then?"

' _My…DAY…_ ' The face, held between two hands, began to contort. Mumen reached for his belt, heart beating fast in his ears. He could feel it, in the temperature, in the way his eyes kept blurring like they were thick with tears. Not one ghost. Two.

xx

The appearance of a ghost in a specific place relates not necessarily to the place of death, or a person the ghost wishes to haunt, but to the ghost's source.

A source is the object (or, more rarely, place) where a ghost enters the world from the Other Side. It can be anything, though it must be something that was important to the person before they became a ghost. It may be a treasured necklace, or a letter, or anything in between - but, more than eighty percent of the time, the source is biological residue. A remnant of the body. Bones are the most common, but it can also be skin, hair, or, in recent bodies, even flesh or blood. Finding sources is rarely a job for the squeamish - but the only way to truly destroy a ghost is to destroy its source.

xx

"Mumen, are you okay?"

Mumen struggled to force his mouth into action. "Y-yes," he managed, teeth clenched, "but I'm - locked - pretty bad. Please hurry."

From under the kitchen sink, he could hear Saitama rattling around, the only soothing wave of sound in an overwhelming ocean of terror. One ghost stood on either side of him, emanating Creeping Fear and cold, the helplessness of Malaise freezing him to a spot. His rapier hung uselessly in a bone-white hand.

Two Floating Brides - as far as he could tell, sisters, holding one another's heads. The younger of the two was dressed for a wedding - the elder in the garb of an unmarried woman. Jealousy and anger crashed over him between the two. In the kitchen, too far away to help, Saitama was searching desperately for the source that might free him. Mumen tried to piece these women together, but with no talent for hearing, he couldn't get anything out of them beyond what he could see with his eyes.

Saitama, on the other hand, was following the spiders. Once sprawling all over the kitchen, the spiders had concentrated their mass in and around the sink, and, finding no luck in the bowl, he'd stuck his head into the cabinet below and was throwing things out with wild abandon. He hated the feeling of dozens of tiny creatures swarming up and over his arms or trying to crawl down his neckline, but it was part of the job. Though he was good at many things, Saitama could admit that he'd never been very good at following protocol, which made finding a source uncomfortably difficult. He could only go by environmental clues, like spiders, or the movement of the ghost itself. Sources gave out no psychic auras. Here, he was in the dark.

But that didn't mean he _couldn't_ find a source, or that he didn't know what or where one was once he'd located it. With a precision very little of his work was familiar with, he slammed a fist through the drywall into which the piping of the sink disappeared. In the small space between the thin plaster and the insulation and wood of the exterior of the building, he found…well. Exactly what he was looking for. He scooped the source up into his hand, wriggled out from under the sink, and looked at it in the light.

A small, dusty pile of bones, cupped delicately in the palm of his hand. Small, thin bones. If he'd known anything about bones (which he didn't), he might have identified them as the fingers of two hands.

But he didn't.

"Oi, Mumen, I got the source!" He called over his shoulder. "Where's the silver glass in your bag?"

"M-main p-pocket," Mumen said, teeth chattering loudly in his ears. Around him, the defensive iron chains were beginning to clink and shift. Both ghosts were pushing, mouths open in silent groans.

"Got it," Saitama said, and made to walk past Mumen and the manifestations to the front door, where Mumen's backpack had been set for easy access. The two apparitions turned - held their heads out in front of their bodies - began to glide after him.

' _Mine…that's mine…give it back…_ '

"Yeah, yeah, just let me put it in a box for you," Saitama said, apparently thoroughly unconcerned and unaffected by the Malaise radiating off of the two of them. He kneeled down next to the bag. "So where are you girls from?"

' _My day…My day…'_

' _That's mine…give it back…'_

"Ah, yeah," Saitama said, "that's what I thought you'd say." And with two decisive hands, he flicked the silver-glass jar open and dumped the handful of bones into it. There was a hideous screaming noise, wailing and crying, the two Brides throwing themselves forwards suddenly at him - and then, as the lid snapped down, nothing.

Silence. Darkness. The pale glow of weak ghosts had snuffed out all at once, leaving the apartment pitch black. "Mumen?" Saitama ventured after a moment. "You okay, dude?"

There was a long beat, in which Saitama felt his heart beating, nervous, fast. Then, calmly, his partner said, "I could really go for some tea, if it's all the same to you."

xx

It wasn't much of a story, and beyond the team and their client, no one else ever heard about it. That was the way most jobs between the Accidental Team worked - no thanks, not a lot of gratitude, and certainly no fame. But they did their job, and they were happy to do it.

Neither of them would've been happy if they'd been told that things were about to change.


	2. The Young Agent

To the psychically gifted, the warehouse was a cacophony of sound, echoes of voices rising and boiling over one another, desperate to be heard, desperate to be anything. The city block it occupied had been mostly abandoned, the perpetual haunt driving even the most obtuse adults from the area through discomfort and fear. Its sickly presence radiated outwards even in the daytime - now, in the pitch of the night, the mounting miasma and malaise was enough to make the sane vomit.

Moving quietly along the catwalks was a boy. He was not a particularly young boy, nor was he particularly old. An educated guess might place him anywhere between twelve and fifteen, but his uniform marked him with the respect he deserved, and adults never dared speak out of turn in his presence. He was dressed in crisp, well-ironed blacks, from his starched turtleneck to the flapping tails of his trench coat, and was tidily decorated (wherever decoration was appropriate) with silver accents and jewelry. A double-belt, from which a sheathed iron rapier hung, clung tightly to his waist, pulling his shirt and jacket close enough to show off his muscular, toned waist. His jackboots (tight, black, so clean they nearly shone in the darkness) tapped gently against the creaking wood. The perfect Agent.

Except, of course, for his team.

The problem with the boy's team, really, was that there wasn't one. No true Agent would have followed a mark without their team flanking them, checking temperature and following the proper preventative procedures with salt and lavender at the windows. But the young Agent had entered the warehouse alone. Furthermore, he was not affiliated with any of the large Agencies, nor had he been hired to enter the warehouse by a client of any kind. He should not have been there at all.

But the young (and the brash) have difficulty with following rules, even rules made for the sole purpose of protecting them. Those who think a little too highly of themselves are especially vulnerable. The boy, handsome, blond, serious, seemed like the sort of Agent who might actually be capable of the task before him. He had done many solo jobs before, and saw no reason to think this one would be any different.

His evening was about to take a very nasty turn.

xx

The apartment in the abandoned building of the abandoned block of the mostly abandoned city that served as a headquarters for the Accidental Team habitually accumulated the kind of mess you always get when you make two teenagers live together in a small space and leave them to fend for themselves. Technically, Mumen had helpfully written " _cleaning day_ " on every Friday of their calendar in tidy little letters, but cleaning day rarely came without being preceded by something so unbearably gross or bad that neither of the two could stand it any longer. That morning, that had meant the revealed colony of cockroaches living under the tiles of the kitchen floor. Whether or not Mumen had actually cried upon seeing them was up for debate for most of the day, which they spent scrubbing, tidying, and sucking bugs up with a vacuum cleaner.

Dinner had been neglected in the face of this adversity, and by they'd made haste to the supermarket and bought food supplies, dusk was already beginning to set in. If they'd been adults, they might have bolted all the way back home - but the summer air was nice, and they weren't adults, after all, and they took a leisurely stroll back through the abandoned city to their little home, walking shoulder to shoulder.

"Man, did you see that crazy deal they had on soba? I was surprised it wasn't all gone by the time we got there," Saitama asked cheerfully, not really expecting an answer. "That Greek yogurt that's so popular was pretty cheap, too. I don't know what you can cook it into, but it seemed like a good investment."

"I think I read about this Indian curry that uses yogurt," Mumen supplied, "although I can't remember where I read it. Maybe it was on TV?"

"Oh, yeah, I think I saw that! It was one of those American shows - those guys are crazy competitive," he gesticulated vaguely with an arm, "like - every cooking show I've seen from America is some weird competition. Do they have just normal cooking shows in the states? Or is it all - " he puffed out his chest, "'chefs, in your baskets are three pieces of assorted garbage, you have twenty minutes!'"

"Yeah, yeah! And there's always that one guy who's like, 'I know _exactly_ what to make with my garbage,'" Mumen replied, laughing.

Saitama opened his mouth, probably to make another derisive comment about American entertainment, then stopped - stood stock still on the pavement. Mumen took a few steps forward, stopped, turned back. "Do you hear that?"

Mumen tipped his head to the side, strained his ears - "nothing," he said, after a moment. "What is it?"

"It's coming from over there." Saitama pointed down the street, gesturing off to the side. As Mumen turned to squint, he could just make out a pale blue-white glow in the growing darkness of the late evening.

"Oh, you mean the warehouse," he said after a moment, and then, a bit more reproachfully, "I wish you wouldn't ask if I could hear - you know I don't hear the way you do," and then, as a second, less emotional thought, added "but I'm surprised you can hear it from here - it's probably two blocks away. Can you always hear it?"

"No," Saitama said, squinting and turning his head at odd angles towards and away from the warehouse, "it's never this loud, especially not this early. Something's wrong. It's getting all riled up."

"Maybe we'd better go the other way."

"I think there's someone in there," Saitama said, as a response, and Mumen froze - "it sounds - hungrier than normal."

"Someone's in trouble?"

"Well, maybe," he said, and waved a hand noncommittally. "Maybe we should just go and check, just to make sure."

"Right," Mumen said, and flexed his fingers into fists, "let's go."

xx

He had miscalculated.

While the young Agent had approached the warehouse with the understanding that it was haunted by multiple ghosts with multiple sources, he had suspected, in his initial review, that there might be a maximum of three Demon ghosts or five Tiger ghosts. Instead, at every turn, every dusty corner he scraped through, he found another adversary, rising up through shelves or out of corners, a mangle of different types. The rapier in his hand scratched out a complex sigil in the air as a Wraith hurled itself directly at him, its eyes boggling out of a gaunt face. Somewhere above, close to the ceiling, he could hear the distant screams of a little girl calling for her mother. Waves of dark confusion and vengeful anger sloshed over him, crushing breath out of his chest.

The air, once dark in the windowless expanse, was burning cold, bright blue and grey, nearly blinding him with light. Some of the forms around him were shapeless, weak, subsisting off of the power of the strong ones around them - others were distinct, clean, their hideous faces rotting and perfectly preserved in the agony of death. He knew exactly where the sources were, now, but it didn't matter, not with the impenetrable fog of certain demise thick on every side of him. One desperate hand flicked his rapier out wildly - the other reached for the magnesium bomb on his belt.

 _'Why is it so dark? I'm cold up here…I'm lonely…'_

 _Toofastbreaksjammedcouldn'tsee_

 _'It's safe! Follow me! It's safe!'_

' _Oh, yes,_ ' the Agent thought, dryly, ' _very safe up on those catwalks for little kids, I'm sure._ ' His hand raised up, glass secured in his fingers, and threw. The glass of the magnesium bomb shattered, and there was a deafening, unanimous scream as the roar of fire ripped through the apparitions, melting them away.

Gone. But not for long - there were still huge numbers of ghosts, meandering aimlessly around the outside of the room. He cursed himself for his idiocy, looked towards the door he'd come through. He couldn't possibly make it back out, not in the time it would take for the ghosts to reform, and he'd used his only magnesium for the cause. His chains might work - but the option that gave him was to stay in one three-foot radius for the next twelve hours, desperately fending off psychic enemies with no need for rest or sanity. And what would happen if something was strong enough to move his chains? One of the Specters from earlier on in the evening had simply blown his salt barrier to the wind. Surely, combined with other, equally potent enemies, such a Demon ghost could move anything with ease.

He could feel the sweat of terror on his brow, felt the desperate, horrified fog filling his stomach. _No,_ he didn't have _time_ for this - he was already all out of time, he couldn't wait any longer just doubting himself. The chains would have to do.

With cold sweat dripping down his back, he sprinted towards his bag.

xx

The warehouse wasn't too far away as the crow flies, but City Z was split into winding streets and dead-end alleys, and navigation became difficult, if not downright impossible, in the late evening. Most of the Cities within the larger area complex were well-illuminated at night with ghost-lanterns sending reassuring beams of light through the streets once every forty-three seconds, but out here, most of the city had never even had the lanterns installed. Where they were installed, many of them didn't work - not that it made much of a difference to the ghosts, of course, as very few ghosts were _actually_ driven away by bright light, but it was the difference between night and day to two pairs of human eyes.

Still, they made it all the same - and just in time, too.

The door to the warehouse had not only been left open, it had been knocked clear off its hinges - and in the dark, shimmering light ebbed through, even to Mumen's weaker eyesight. He looked at Saitama, who looked back at him - then, as one, they tossed their grocery bags to the ground in a pile and ran in at a dash.

Saitama had been right - there _was_ someone in trouble. A lone Agent, flat on his back, lay in the center of the floor near a standard-issue duffle-bag. Above and around him, curious spirits peered down, occasionally reaching out as though to touch him, then wincing away, thinking better of it. Over his arms and piled on his chest was a standard fifty-feet of iron chain. "I'll get the kid," Mumen called over the din he was sure Saitama could hear.

"Right," Saitama yelled back, "I'll get the ghosts."

xx

The Agent was down, but not for long - due mostly in part to the boy who saved his life rather than to any personal grit or muster he had. He awoke in the terrible roar of sound and anger and pain and cold to feel human hands, warm, on his forehead.

"Be careful, stay down," said a calm, unfamiliar voice, "you hit your head pretty hard there. It might be a concussion."

His vision was blurred, shaking under the strain, but he could make out the form of the person above him - a boy, not much older than him, with reflective glasses and a few thin scars on his face. Protocol, forever burned into his brain, tried to push him into an upright position. "Civilian, this area is not safe," he said, gasping, "please retreat to a designated safe - "

"Yes, yes, very good," said the boy, unshakably calm, "except we're Agents, not civilians, and we're rescuing you. Have you got any silver-glass in your bag?"

Struggling, the Agent pushed himself up - around himself and the older boy, his chains had been arranged into a perfect three-foot radius, wrapping around themselves where they needed to. There were also quite a lot fewer ghosts hovering around him than there had been before. Relieved, he lowered himself back onto the ground, head pounding. "Yes - three ghost-jars in the inside pocket," he managed, "who are you?"

"My name's Mumen Rider," the older boy said, his attention turned to the duffle bag as he dug through the contents, "what's yours?"

"Genos." His head swam - he could still hear the distant cries of the girl from far above, the incessant tapping of a stone-knocker somewhere below, and the myriad different screams and wails of lost voices. It was distracting.

"Nice to meet you, Genos," Mumen said, not unkindly, and then, "I'm borrowing your rapier."

As Mumen straightened up, standing at the ready with his rapier in hand, Genos curled over onto his side, shut his eyes, covered his ears with his hands. Not that it helped - the voices of the ghosts came from inside his head, pleading for _toofastbreaksjammedcouldn'tsee_ some kind of help, maybe just _it's safe! Follow me_ redemption. Whoever his rescuers were, they were too late. This would just be another gravesite for them - as well as himself.

He had been stupid. Foolish. Behaved like an ignorant child, on a job for the first time. He hadn't even bothered to _research the history of the warehouse_ , for god's sake, a mistake that would never have been made if he'd just followed procedure. But he hadn't, and now because of him, several off-duty Agents were going to die for doing their jobs right and trying to rescue him. He had failed at every conceivable step of the mission. The only option now was to -

The building went silent.

It took Genos a moment to process the quiet, and when he did, he scrambled up into a sitting position and jerked his head back and forth, trying to see what had happened - but the room had gone pitch black, save for the pale, glowing light of a few weak Glimmers by the ceiling. His eyes widened - his jaw dropped. That wasn't possible. That _wasn't possible_. "What happened?" He asked, and realized his voice was shaking.

That _couldn't_ have happened - there were _dozens_ of ghosts, maybe even a _hundred_ of them. There were sources in three different locations in the warehouse, maybe more. And ghosts _never_ just snuffed out all at once like that, not unless their source was secured, and it _couldn't_ have been secured so _quickly,_ and -

"Saitama happened," Mumen said, bringing Genos back down to earth, "I told you we were rescuing you and I meant it. We should get you out of here - that concussion looks like it could get pretty ugly."

Between the two of them, they managed to get Genos into a standing position, an arm slung over Mumen's shoulders. "Who's Saitama?" Genos asked, trying to focus on the still-spinning world around him. Maybe this was a dream. Maybe he'd wake up from all of this, soon.

"Uh, that's me," said an unfamiliar voice behind him, and Genos turned around to face…um…to get a better look at…uh…hm.

It wasn't - it wasn't that the boy in front of him looked particularly _odd_ , Genos decided, squinting in the dark. It was more that he didn't really _look_ like _anything_. He stood at an average height, and had an average build, and had the kind of face that could only be described as 'nondescript'. His nose was…where it was supposed to be. His eyes were plain and dark. The only distinguishing feature he had was the dome of his head, which was shaved bare - but lots of kids did that, these days. It was part of the uniform for the Hammerhead Agency, and a few non-Agent kids had picked it up as a potential new look.

But he'd done what Genos couldn't do, and in a single moment. In the ghost-jar in his hand, bones wrapped in linen rattled. There was power in him - Genos could feel it.

"I'd like to work for you," he said, staring intently at the Agent.

"Alright, dude, you are super concussed," Saitama replied, but as Genos' shoulder's slumped, added "but okay."

xx

He hadn't expected the kid to actually _show up_.

When Saitama and Mumen had come home from the warehouse, where they'd waited until the ambulance arrived, most of the cold food had gone bad, and Mumen had gone researching in a huff. Apparently, the warehouse hadn't been all that haunted until twenty years ago, when bones stolen from nearby graves had been stashed there by members of some weird, unidentified cult. Saitama reasoned that it only seemed fair to let the Agent who'd originally gone after the job try and justify his decision, and had - with some trepidation - allowed him inside.

"I was just kidding when I said you could work here, you know," he said, frowning, "drink your tea, and then leave."

The young Agent had the decency, at least, to look shamefaced. "Teacher - "

"Don't call me that, it's weird," Saitama replied.

"Then, master!"

"No, that's definitely worse," he said, then "how old are you, anyway?"

"Fourteen!"

"Great, good for you. Look, Genos - I'm only a few years older than you, so don't call me teacher. And I haven't agreed to teach you anything. And you _can't work here_ ," he said, pointedly, "because we're a very small outfit and we _don't make enough_ to _pay you_."

Genos' face screwed up, and Saitama thought, at first, that it had finally got into his head. But he hadn't. "Why don't you make money?" He asked instead, staring intently and gripping his tea mug with a vice-like grip. "Do you only take the most exclusive clients? But then, with three Agents, you could take more work. I could help - I can take solo jobs."

Saitama decided not to mention that the last 'solo job' he'd seen Genos take very nearly resulted in his early and untimely death, though he definitely considered bringing that point up. Instead, however, he took up another, equally compelling point, which was "no, we don't make any money because we don't get any clients, and the ones we _do_ get are dirt poor." Beat. "Because they live in City Z." Beat. "Where we live." Long beat. "So go away."

The silence yawned between them, like an old cat exhausted from a long day of sleeping, settling down to take another nap. Worryingly, Genos looked like he was thinking - but his words, "I see. Thank you for your consideration," calmed his nerves.

They drank their tea in silence, and then Genos left. Saitama considered it a successful meeting.

xx

Apparently, however, Genos did not.

It was not a full twenty-four hours later when the second bid for Saitama's attention was made, and he once again found an impeccably dressed and _entirely unwanted_ teenager on his front doorstep. This time, he was clearly prepared for an interview, and it was Mumen, ever thinking the best of others, who foolishly allowed him over the threshold. It was the only time in his life Saitama ever considered giving his best friend a sock in the face.

He had brought his _credentials_. Stared silently as Saitama self-consciously tried to read the resume and letters of recommendation. Saitama was about to open his mouth to remind Genos that, again, they _weren't hiring_ , but Mumen spoke up first. "So you used to work for the S-Agency," he said, calmly leafing through pages, "what prompted your departure?"

Saitama shot Mumen a helpless, betrayed look, but Mumen either didn't see it or ignored it outright. Across the table, the young Agent's face shifted in a way that Saitama wasn't sure he liked. "Me? You'll listen to my problems?" Genos asked, eyeballing Saitama exclusively.

"No, thanks, just an official report," Saitama said, feeling a little more uncomfortable in his own home than he really liked.

"It started back before I was an agent," Genos said, staring down at the tea that Saitama had politely (read: begrudgingly) made for him at Mumen's prompting. "I used to live in a small suburb in City F with my family. Money was tight, and we scrambled to get by, but we were happy, all the same."

"Dude, did you hear what I just said?"

"But everything changed when I met Dr. Kuseno, an old Agent who was recruiting for his new team," Genos continued on, bowling through as though Saitama hadn't said anything, "he told me, and the many other children he met with, that we could make our families proud and happy by taking this job. Of course, I accepted - my love for my family was the same as anyone else's. And I knew there was something special about me - I had _always_ seen ghosts, ever since infancy. Dr. Kuseno told me my power was particularly strong, that it could become moreso if only I would train hard under him. This was maybe six years ago - I was eight years old at the time."

' _Well, all normal so far,'_ Saitama thought, crossing his arms over his chest. That was how most Agents got their start these days - recruiters for larger Agencies, looking for the best talent in the Cities. It had literally nothing to do with his employment for the S-Agency, though, which meant that they were probably in for a long haul, here. He leaned against the kitchen sink and drummed his fingers impatiently.

"I trained hard under Dr. Kuseno, with a large team of other children. We were paid meager wages, but to my family, it was enough to help us get by with a hitherto unknown ease," Genos continued, beginning to pick up speed, "everything in my life seemed perfect - I was happy to have the job I had, helping my family financially, learning about ghosts and possibilities in a future at an Agency. But we were given a case that - that we shouldn't have been sent in for." He swallowed around a painful memory, then continued. "A year after I started studying under Dr. Kuseno, our team was sent in to do a job on the outskirts of town. We were told it was a Tiger ghost, a basic Shade - but it was a Shining Boy."

Ah. Rough. Saitama closed his eyes and sighed - Shining Boys were particularly potent, dangerous Demon ghosts, known for looking deceptively harmless. Calling them Shades was a common but deadly mistake - he didn't need Genos to tell him what had happened. "I see," he said, and then, because his voice suddenly felt naked in the still apartment, added "I'm sorry."

Genos nodded wordlessly, and for a moment, Saitama thought maybe he was done - but that was a little too much to hope for, and Saitama's shoulders sagged as the boy opened his mouth once more. "My entire team was slaughtered - by some miracle of coincidence, I managed to survive and escape, but I was the only one. When I returned home, the Shining Boy followed me without my knowledge - I had never even _read_ about a ghost that could move so far from its source, much less seen one - and managed to enter not only my home, but the many homes surrounding us. By the sunrise, my family - and most of the neighborhood - had been killed in their sleep." He set a hand on his chest. "At first, I blamed myself, and even now, I often do - but Dr. Kuseno told me that the reason the ghost had been able to follow me was because its source had been reinforced by human hands. Not only that, but that night, many reinforced sources had been placed all over City C, wreaking havoc and killing thousands of citizens through no fault of the Agents sent to contain them. Dr. Kuseno and I dedicated our lives to finding the perpetrator of this crime, which had taken the lives of my parents and of so many other innocents."

"I see," Saitama said, more to remind Genos that there were other humans in the room who might also want to say something every once in a while than anything else. "So you - "

"I was strong enough, then," Genos said, cutting Saitama off at the pass, "to become a true, professional Agent, and with a reference from Dr. Kuseno, I found myself being offered jobs at many different agencies. As I had been told that the S-Agency was the highest-ranked Agency among the Cities, I sent in my application to them first. I desired, more than anything, to have a highly trained team of investigators to help me try and find the individual or individuals who destroyed my livelihood, my home, and my happiness, but I quickly found this was not to be the case. The other Agents in the S-Agency were lackluster, weak in mind, all flash and no substance, and they did not care about their teammates more often than not. At first, I took this in stride - I decided it would be best to pursue my cause alone, as the only person following the case. But the longer I worked for the Agency, the more I felt that my teammates were holding me back, and I began to resent them."

Saitama felt his head dip, and struggled to straighten it back up. He glanced openly at the clock, tapped his foot, hoping against hope that Genos might catch the signs of boredom. No joy.

"After three years at the S-Agency, I decided the best thing to do was to leave, and to take cases as an individual Agent, doing solo jobs and always researching and looking for other signs of those terrorist individuals who destroyed my city. I handled every case that came my way with ease as I ran after the phantom of my enemy. Up until a week ago, when I found myself in the warehouse, and realized that I had become too cocksure of my own abilities. I failed to properly assess the situation or research the job, and quickly found myself in over my head. I had found myself with tunnel vision, focusing only on the larger enemy, unable to believe or understand that anyone beyond those individuals could hurt or kill me. I was foolish - if it weren't for the two of you, I wouldn't be alive at all." His head turned suddenly, eyes focusing on Saitama. "When I saw your strength, Teacher, I realized that I had to become more powerful, no matter what - I must study under you. I realized that - "

Saitama snapped. "Okay, _shut up for three seconds,_ " he said, "if you can't make your point in twenty words or less, _don't say it._ Mumen, we need to talk right now."

xx

"We have to hire him," said Mumen.

"What? No, we don't have any money."

Ideally, Saitama and Mumen would be having this conversation in another room, but Saitama couldn't hold his words in for long enough to get there. The two older Agents were pressed, shoulder to shoulder, backs turned to Genos, hissing whispers back and forth and hoping they'd gotten far enough that they were no longer in range of Genos' hearing. "He's young and he's got talent, and he's from the S-Agency," Mumen insisted, "and besides, how could you hear that story and turn him out on his ear?"

"Wuh- but - but this was always _our thing,_ " Saitama said, and felt his voice wobble in embarrassment at the stupidity of the statement, "and besides, we don't have anywhere for him to stay - we don't have a spare room or anything - and we don't get enough jobs! We can't take on an employee that we can't _pay_."

From the other side of the room, Genos said "for what it's worth, I don't need money."

Slowly, the two boys rotated to look at him. Genos blinked, and added "and I'll clean the apartment for you."

"How d'you know we need someone to clean the apartment?" Saitama asked, suspiciously.

"There's a note on your calendar that says cleaning day was three days ago, but that clearly hasn't happened. And I can cook," he said, "and I'll sleep on the floor or outside, anywhere you need. And I know how to take calls and find jobs." He sat, staring, eyes hopeful, and Saitama felt his stomach sink. Mumen was right - you just couldn't _deny_ a job to a kid like _that_.

So he sighed. "Oh, well, alright, then," he said, "you'll start tomorrow."


	3. The Young Couple

Genos' employment was incredibly - almost conspicuously - well-timed. The very next day, over breakfast, Mumen took a call with a job on the other end of the line. "It's Bang," he said in response to Saitama's raised eyebrows and mouth full of rice, "he wants us to come up and talk about work."

"Yeah, alright," Saitama said, once he'd swallowed, "we haven't done a job we got paid for in a while."

Genos, who was standing at the sink, furiously scrubbing egg off of a frying pan, looked up, startled. "Bang? Bang Silverfang?"

"He says he'll send a car," Mumen said, either pointedly ignoring or just missing the lost, confused, and vaguely excited look that Genos was shooting his way, "and that we should load up and take inventory, because we'll probably be working tonight."

"Ah, okay," Saitama said, then shot a look at Genos. "Need any help with the dishes?"

"No, I got it," Genos replied, shaking his head twice like he was trying to clear fog out. "Uh, did you say - "

"I'll go fill up the salt canisters," Mumen interjected, "do you remember where we kept that coarse-ground stuff? It doesn't leak out of the sides like the cooking stuff does."

"It's up on one of the closet shelves by the bleach," Saitama replied, "I'll go get chains coiled up. The rapiers are still in our bag, right?" And between the two of them, bouncing off of each other in easy conversation, they drifted out of the kitchen and into other sections of the apartment. Genos was left alone, thinking intently as he drained the sink and washed his hands.

Bang Silverfang.

Well-known and well-respected. Of course, he had to be. The Silverfang Agency was nearly fifty years old, almost as old as The Problem itself. It was one of the highest quality and most exclusive schools of the hunting business - filled with strong Agents studying under an even stronger master. It had started in London, at the epicenter of The Problem, and migrated to City A in Japan as master Silverfang had made the choice to move back to his ancestral home. But the legacy of the Agency wasn't why Silverfang was so famous to this day - that was due, in no small part, to his Talents.

At the beginning of The Problem, a number of early Agents had made their famous rises to power. Marissa Fittes, in London, who had supposedly spoken to - and held sentient conversation with - legendary Type Three ghosts. Bartimaeus and Ptolemy Necho, in Alexandria, who claimed to be able to make physical contact with spirits without the aid of silver or iron. And, yes, Bang Silverfang, who, it was said, could see straight through ghosts' sources and into the Other Place. And, like Fittes and the Nechos, Silverfang's Talents and psychic ability had dimmed, but never gone away, even in adulthood.

Marissa Fittes had died of old age nearly twenty years ago - Ptolemy Necho had been murdered as a young man, and Bartimaeus had disappeared a few years afterwards. Bang Silverfang was the only known living psychic adult still walking the face of the Earth.

And Saitama and Mumen _knew_ him.

No, it wasn't just that, Genos realized, staring intently down at his knees. Bang Silverfang knew _them._ He was calling them over breakfast, sending them a car, hiring them personally. And they were on a first-name basis with him. He wondered, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, who the Accidental Team _was._

xx

"Oi, Bang, we're here," Saitama called, removing his shoes at the door. Genos hastily followed suit. "Where are you?"

"Come in," replied a much older voice from somewhere out of sight, "I'm in the kitchen. Take your shoes off at the door."

"We already did," Saitama mumbled, and made his way inside. Genos, nerves on edge, followed him only with a wide berth. Next to him, comfortable and confident, Mumen gave him a gentle nudge.

"Nervous?"

"It…would be dishonest to say otherwise," Genos replied, shoulders hunching defensively. Mumen laughed.

"Don't worry," he said in a low, comforting voice, "Bang's just a person. Forget all the legacy stuff and just talk to him like you would talk to any adult." This, apparently, had the desired affect - Genos' shoulders slowly returned to their natural position below the ears, and Mumen smiled, went to push open the swinging door to the kitchen.

Saitama, forever comfortable in his surroundings, had already sprawled out at the counter between the kitchen and living room, chatting amiably with the old man scrubbing a frying pan off in the sink. Genos froze, stuck behind Mumen.

It wasn't enough to say that Bang was an adult - Bang was an old man, hair white, skin veiny and thin. But his presence was commanding - magnetizing. Tall, regal, even barefooted and washing dishes in the sink. As he turned to face Mumen, smiling thinly, Genos caught a glimpse of his eyes. Intense, lighting-blue. He swallowed hard.

"Bang, this is our new Agent, Genos," Mumen said helpfully, and Genos, startled and desperate to break contact, gave the deepest bow he could remember ever doing.

"Nice to meet you," Bang said, voice traced with amusement, "I'd shake your hand, but mine aren't clean. Have a seat, you two," he motioned towards the chairs by Saitama, "I'll brief you in a moment."

It was said that the eyes of Silverfang had gone blue the first time he had looked into the Other Place, and had remained so ever since. He was known to be something of a hermit these days, avoiding pictures and interviews where possible, and the only images Genos had ever seen of him had been in black and white, not to mention old and antiquated. Most people were surprised to find that Bang was still alive at all - the common theory was that repeated or sustained contact with ghosts could take years off a person's lifespan, but Bang was still kicking at seventy or eighty years. The last living legend Agencies could point to.

Also, he smelled like lobster.

"Ah, Mumen, I left the official file for the assignment on the table - why don't you go grab it," Bang said, pointing distractedly. As Mumen stood up and obediently went to retrieve the folder, he added "to be honest, I mostly called you boys up because I need help getting rid of a bunch of seafood my brother sent me." He dried his hands off, stroked his chin thoughtfully. "The job isn't too much of an issue. Typical concerned homeowner - looks like the estate was built on not-very-spiritually-solid ground. That's the problem with these old mansions," he sighed, "before The Problem, no one ever checked the history of the grounds. All the information you'll need is in that file."

Mumen leafed through the contents - mostly photocopies of old newspaper clippings, with untidy red scrawl in the corners. "Looks like there've been a couple difficulties here," he said, "some of these date back to before The Problem even _started_."

"Some of it is probably fabricated - caused by superstition, fear, or errors of record," Genos said, finding his voice at last, "it's very common in cases with older homes. Any reports of hauntings made previous to the start of The Problem should be treated with extreme scrutiny - only objective historical events can be truly verified."

"Textbook accurate," Bang said, nodding. "While that file contains a great deal of information, it's not all going to be useful. I sent Charanko to compile the information, but I suspect he just filled it with whatever he could find about the location. Well, it'll be an afternoon of work for you, Mumen. Get you boys into the spirit of the thing."

"Um," Saitama said, "did you say something about food?"

xx

"So how did you two meet Silverfang?" Genos asked, thermos of tea in one hand. "Were you his students before? Or was he a recruiter when you were younger?"

"It's not like I'm that much older than you," Saitama replied, a hint reproachfully, "I'm only sixteen."

Genos' brows folded together. "But then, your hair - "

"Yeah, okay, it fell out."

"But then, that means you've gone bald, despite your age - "

"So what if I _am_ bald?! What's the big problem?"

"Deep breaths, Saitama," Mumen said calmly, without looking up from his notebook. The three Agents were sitting at the largest dining table any of them had ever seen, under a dimly lit chandelier that probably cost more than their entire apartment building. The house - iestate/I was a more accurate term, really - was huge and sprawling, four floors high and built in the middle of nowhere, and once the sun went down, they were looking at an evening of a separated team, following signs of ghosts without enough solid evidence to know what they were looking for. The stress level was high. It was important to remain calm.

Saitama sighed and slumped down in his chair. "I dunno, it was a long time ago," he said, "I don't really remember _not_ knowing Bang. Mumen, do you remember how we met him?"

It was a lie - a lie of distrust or discomfort. "It's not a big deal," Genos said, and felt the tension ease up, "I was just wondering."

Mumen checked his watch. "It's nearly nine thirty," he said, and stretched. "We should get moving."

"Right," Genos replied, happy to move to a more comfortable subject, "how should we split up? We could each take a floor, or - "

"Yyyeah, I don't think so," Saitama put a finger in his ear inattentively. "You should go with Mumen, so he can keep an eye on you. I'm kind of worried about leaving you by yourself."

Genos felt his heart sink. "I understand," he said, and he _did_ \- he just wished he didn't. Nothing about the first job Saitama had seen him take had been even remotely impressive. Their first impressions of each other had been inverted, it seemed. He just needed one chance, the chance to prove he wasn't just some incompetent kid who needed rescuing, throwing himself on the Accidental Team's kindness and stability.

"Alright, we'll take the upper two floors," Mumen said after a slightly uncomfortable moment of silence, "Saitama, will you be okay down here by yourself?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be fine," he said, waving a hand dismissively, "let's set our watches and get going."

The first hour passed in relative quiet - Genos and Mumen patrolled in awkward silence, sometimes close enough to the stairs to hear Saitama singing _Thriller_ from somewhere below, but more often than not in the soft, creaking quiet shared by all old homes. Now and again, Mumen would say the temperature out loud, or ask Genos to listen for activity, but the better part of their time was spent in contemplation.

They were on the fourth floor, inspecting a bathroom, when Genos first felt it. He had removed his glove, and was running his fingers over the walls, searching for anything that might clue him in, and bumped into the side of a mirror. Ice cold, so cold he almost jerked his hand away. "Mumen!" He whispered in the still air, "I think I've got something."

"You think so, huh?" Mumen said from the doorway, stock still, back turned to Genos.

"Yeah - it's the mirror," Genos replied, pressing fingers into the glass. The waves of memory were pouring off of it in slow licks, thick and undefinable. He could feel - he could feel vanity, _beauty_ , lust, a beautiful woman with long, shining hair falling delicately over her shoulders. And a man, standing behind her, placing a necklace around her throat - sudden anger, screaming, struggle, violence - and he jerked his hand away, gasping in the frozen air. "Mumen," he managed, "I've got something."

"Yeah," replied Mumen, "I've got something too."

xx

" _You hear the dooooor slam and realize there's nowhere left to run,_ " Saitama half-sang, half-hissed, strutting confidently down one of about eight hundred stupid hallways on the first floor, " _you feel the coooold hand and wonder if you'll ever see the_ \- huh?"

His eyes fixed intently on the ceiling. Blaring bright blue near the corner was a thick, damp coat of something unpleasantly wet, dripping onto the floor. To less sensitive Sight, it might have been easy to miss. To the more rational observer, the correct response to this observation would _not_ be to go over to the gross dripping ectoplasm and start poking at it. Saitama gave it a shot anyway.

Ectoplasm was nothing more than physical residue left behind by ghosts, and was completely harmless, but hell if it wasn't gross. Saitama's immediate response to getting it all over his hand was to wipe it off on the leg of his tracksuit, making "echhhhh"ing noises and generally wasting a lot of time that could've been saved by just not touching the apparition to begin with. "Gross," he said aloud, and, because he felt he hadn't been very professional just then, added, "hey, if there are any ghosts or whatever here, come on out already." Silence. He held his hands out, smiled innocently. "I'm not armed," he said, "I don't have any iron or anything. No chains, no rapier. I just wanna talk."

The silence stretched out before him, but now it seemed like the pointed silence of someone trying very hard not to make any noise. Saitama smiled again, and sat, cross-legged, on the floor. "I'll listen to anything you have to say," he said, "I'm a _very_ good Listener."

There was nothing for several minutes - then, an empty, sucking sound, like wind against the mouth of a cave. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, and Saitama closed his eyes and felt a vast desert of silence flood into him, enveloping him in its solitude. _'I can't believe it,'_ said a woman's voice, low and sad, _'we would have been happy together.'_

"Who?" He asked, with the perfect ease of the practiced, "who would have made you happy?"

A long, thoughtful pause - then terrible, frightful cold, twisting his skin tight around his body. _'I can't believe it,'_ she said again, _'he gave me a present - I thought he changed - he didn't love me. We would have been happy together.'_

"What happened?"

The low whistling of the wind around him again. _'How could he do that to me?'_ She asked, her voice suddenly vulnerable and small, ' _I'm so beautiful. Don't you think I'm beautiful? Look at me!'_

Carefully, Saitama opened one eye, and then the other. Before him was an apparition, radiating powerful ghost-lock and chill from its place on the floor. The body of a woman laid on her side, pale blue, but strong enough to let other colors leak through. Her hair, pooling dramatically on the ground around her head, was sleek and black - her dress a sweet cherry red. She was, Saitama had to admit, rather beautiful, even if her face was carefully veiled in a grey blur. For a woman who'd been dead for thirty years, she looked very good. "I can help you," he said, and he meant it. "This is what I do. But I need you to show me where it happened."

xx

If one thing could be said for Genos, it was that he was a true professional. No sooner had he realized that Mumen was in trouble than he sprang into action, rapier whipping out of its sheath and stabbing over Mumen's shoulder. Perfect contact - the apparition reeled back, whining like an injured dog before fleeing through the wall and out of sight. He slung a nervous arm around Mumen's shoulders to check his lucidity, but he was already coming around, shaking miasma out of his head. Genos relaxed. "Mumen, you okay?"

"Fine, fine," Mumen said, coughed nervously, "sorry, I let it sneak up on me."

"As long as you're okay now," Genos replied, "did you get a good look at it? Was it a man or a woman?"

Mumen shifted uncomfortably. "Not really - it was a vague apparition - more of a haze," he said, "but I'm sure it'll get stronger as the night goes on. We should check in with Saitama - see if he's seen anything."

Genos checked his watch. "We're not due to meet up for another quarter of an hour," he said, "it'd be better to thoroughly investigate this area - I strongly suspect our source is around here."

"What, in the wall?" Mumen wrinkled his nose instinctively - the idea of prying a corpse out of rotting wood and plaster was a gross one at best. Genos shook his head.

"No. Well, it could be," he amended, shrugging, "but I think the source is - a piece of jewelry. And that mirror is either another source or being badly tainted by the first one. It's somewhere in this room, or very close by, for sure." His brow folded intently. "We need to secure the area as quickly as possible."

Mumen seemed to consider this, then nodded, head tipped to one side. "Right. Let's get it done."

That bathroom was extravagantly large, and nearly everything that _could_ be made of marble _was_. If the source was in a wall, as Mumen had suspected, or in the floor, it would make sense that the haunt went unnoticed for so long. Heavy, earthy stones often muffled the power of spirits, choking off their connection to the Other Place. Looking now, he could see the thin mist of death-glow filling the room, old and pale but very present, once he knew what he was looking _for._ It wasn't exactly an _ancient_ glow, but it was old enough that he couldn't figure out an exact time period for it. "So Genos - what'd the mirror show you?"

Genos swallowed - shuddered. It might have been the business, but watching - _feeling_ \- a murder take place was never pleasant. "Well, we're definitely dealing with a Demon ghost, that's for sure," he started, "because it was rather nasty. Violence and homicide, for sure." He sprinkled iron filings vigorously into the silky porcelain bathtub with careless abandon. "A couple. Man and a woman. I think they were engaged, or at least they'd been together for a long time. He was giving her a necklace."

"And then?"

"And then everything went bad," he replied, "here, I'll take the doorway, you get the sink."

They switched places, and sat in silence for several minutes. Genos watched at the door, intermittently closing his eyes and opening his ears, and vice versa. The mist of the glow was around him, yes, but all he could hear when he opened his mind and strained his ears was the crunching of salt from Mumen's hands and the occasional open, empty sound of psychic presence, like air blown over the mouth of an empty bottle.

After a few moments more, Mumen found his voice. "You know, of the possible haunts we had the information for, there _was_ one I dismissed out of hand," he said, words chosen carefully, "it was after the start of The Problem - a double-suicide of a young couple staying here on their honeymoon. But the bodies were properly cremated to avoid any possibility of them becoming Visitors - that's why I didn't consider it. But if the source wasn't on either body at the time…" He trailed off. The crunching of salt slowed. "You feel that?"

Genos did. The slow, sickening stench of malaise drifted up and around them, encircling most of the room. Wordlessly, the two boys walked backwards until they were standing safely in the ring of iron chain they'd set up as a line of defense. The small beam from Mumen's flashlight clicked off, and they were left in complete darkness - when it came to ghosts, any light would blind the apparition out of psychic view. They stood, back to back, stock still and staring into the thick blanket of pitch.

Neither of them checked the thermometer, but they both knew it was getting colder. Genos forced himself to breathe evenly, stare out as his eyes adjusted to the dark. Around him, waist-high, was the pale green-blue mist of the death glow, brighter now than ever before. He shook unprofessional fear out of his mind, closed his eyes, and opened his ears to listen.

At first, silence. Then, low, far away, laughter - two voices, intertwining and tangling around one another, happy, balanced. As he tuned his ears towards it, it began to grow louder, faster, frantic, _manic_ \- and then there was only one voice, pitching, heaving, half-screaming and crying and terrified, and Genos jerked his eyes open - the voice cut off short in his ears - but that was fine.

The Visitor was standing right in front of him.

xx

The girl floated and crawled in intermittent spurts, her voice monotone on a low wail. Saitama followed her two or three feet back, whistling easily. They had climbed the stairs past the third and up to the fourth floor at a snail's pace, and apparently she had no intention of speeding up any time this decade, which was fine by him - he just wished she was a little more talkative. He'd tried to go for a few small-talk topics, like "where are you from", "what's your favorite color", and "what happened when you died that made you come back, were you like murdered or what, I just want to know what the deal is here", but so far, nothing had yielded any results. So he stuck his hands far down into the pockets of his track pants, and made some semblance of _Kutsu Ga Naru._

It was growing colder and colder the higher they climbed, and at the last check, the temperature had dropped to a chilling 4 degrees Celsius, and Saitama was starting to wish he'd brought a pair of gloves. Normally, he wore his tracksuit because it was pretty warm, and the only emergency covering he brought was a white blanket, which he'd left downstairs on the table at their primary refuge. Most of the time, chill affected him in the way braces had back in middle school - it wasn't like he was going to forget it was there, but it didn't bother or impair him in the way that it seemed to impair his fellow Agents. Or Agent. Wait, no. He screwed up his face. It _was_ Agents plural now, wasn't it? Only a very _small_ plural.

How was he supposed to feel about Genos, anyway? Unconsciously, his eyes slid to the floor under his red converse. It wasn't as though he could trust some random kid they'd basically picked up off the street - but he was part of the team, now, which meant that Saitama _had_ to trust him - or else face certain danger or death on a case. He should've shook the kid off, despite Mumen's protests. So why didn't he? Ugh, _that guy…_

Well, it wouldn't be a problem for right now. He'd sensed, from the first moment they made eye contact, the immense power Genos had for one so young. It wasn't as prominent as his own, wasn't even close, but it was much greater than…than most Agents his age. And he was with Mumen. It would be fine. Everything would be okay.

Would it?

Saitama looked back to the woman's slow, mournful crawl as her form began to twist and distort, the image jutting and sparking wildly like static lines on an old television, her arms growing long and bending at disturbing angles like a spider shuffling her corpse along the ground. The moaning was met with a dragging rustle of cloth, now, the sound of a body being pulled by someone too weak to lift it. The hallway began to ooze around him, walls pulsing and beating like a living organism trying to swallow around him, the desperate thrumming of a terrified heartbeat pounding in his ears, trying to envelop his mind.

The girl began to moan, and far away, Saitama could hear laughter, spinning and high-pitched and catching him by the ear and he desperately tried to shut it out, less terrified and more frustrated. A lesser Agent might have become frightened and disoriented, throbbing with powerful emotions for the Visitor to feed off of. But Saitama didn't care.

He stared forward into the blazing blue-white fulgor at the end of the hallway, grit his teeth, and stormed past his sobbing companion.

He had a job to do.

xx

"Which is it?"

"The man," Genos said, grit his teeth. "Look, over my shoulder, can't you see him?"

"Of _course_ I can," Mumen sighed, "I'm just keeping my eyes on this side of the circle, so I can't get a good look. You need to stay calm."

"I'm _very_ calm," Genos snapped.

"Genos, part of being a good Agent is being _honest,_ with yourself and your team," Mumen said, "and right now you are _not calm._ There's nothing wrong with being scared of a murderer who's staring you down, so long as you channel that fear and _control_ it."

Genos was close to replying, hotly, that fear was something that _inexperienced_ Agents felt, but his brain snagged on another vital piece of information. "Murderer?"

"That's what you said, isn't it?" Mumen adjusted his glasses. "Young couple, man and a woman, he gave her a necklace so he could get his hands around her neck and throttled her to death. Or something like that."

"Well, _sort_ of," he said, eyebrows pinching together, "only _she_ wasn't the one who was murdered."

xx

Maybe as a testament to their many years of friendship working side by side, Mumen and Saitama - though nowhere near each other - managed to say "oh, fuck," at exactly the same time.

In his march towards the finish line, Saitama found himself trapped between two angry, vengeful type twos, shrieking and snapping at one another like territorial beasts marking their land. Genos caught sight of him in the middle of a tearing, roaring maelstrom and felt himself jerk in sympathetic terror, pulled his rapier instinctively.

"Teacher!"

"It's okay, Genos," Saitama said, voice calm and easy, eyes fixed on the Visitors as they ripped upwards towards the ceiling of the hallway, "keep your eyes on me."

 _'Of course,'_ Genos thought suddenly, eyes widening in shock, _'I still don't know how he subdued the ghosts at the warehouse.'_ His brow furrowed, and he stared intently, fingers bone cold and sweating slightly against the handle of his blade. Maybe now he could see - see what it was, exactly, that Saitama _did._

The ghosts were circling each other around the unlit chandeliers. The man was desperately trying to retreat, clearly terrified, memories ringing out through the the hallway of a chase, a struggle, the slow drag of his heavy body three floors back down. She was too small to lift him, of course. But she'd been strong enough to kill him - her anger, too, flashed red hot on psychic eyes, and she snapped, screeched. Like a swimmer, dove - not towards her fiancé's spirit, but down, straight down towards Saitama, and Genos cried wordlessly, threw his blade up into a ready position to lunge -

Saitama reached a hand out, palm open, and _grabbed_ her.

Genos' jaw might as well have hit the goddamn floor. In Saitama's hand the Visitor writhed, shrieked, and shrank until she was the size of a snake, shapeless, voice dying away distantly like a train passing down a tunnel into the night. He held her close to his face. "Where's the source?" He hissed, and Genos watched, amazed, as his face contorted into something angry and severe and _beautiful._

He was loathe to break the silence, to change that expression, but the spirit cried out rebelliously and Saitama squeezed down on her, blistering rage. "It's in the wall behind the mirror, teacher," Genos managed, and Saitama looked up at him, blinking, face blank.

"Oh…oh yeah?" Blink. "Did you guys find it?"

"We haven't been able to dig it out - but I'm certain that's where it is," Genos replied, starting to feel self-conscious as his palms began to sweat. "It - it won't take more than a few minutes, unless we run into…marble…"

"Oh." Blink. "Cool."

xx

There was marble in the wall, and it did take more than a few minutes - at least half an hour of hacking into the wood and plaster around it - but they found it. The necklace, a round sapphire pendant inlaid with diamonds sparkling like they'd been polished yesterday, hanging on a bright silver chain, was so powerful a source that Genos couldn't even touch it. Mumen slid it into its silver glass jar and carefully shut it, and the house went silent.

It was one in the morning. They returned downstairs for tea.

As a team, they pieced together what had happened, Mumen writing careful notes and organizing a timeline in his notebook. According to the official report in the file on the mansion, the young couple (Natsumi Aiko, 26, and Tsubaki Iuchi, 32) had rented the estate for some kind of destination pre-wedding honeymoon (there was probably, Saitama pointed out, an actual word for that) more than thirty years ago in the 1980s. Tsubaki had been cheating on his fiancé for several months previous, and when she found out, she had killed him with the very necklace he had proposed to her with.

"Weird that he proposed with a necklace," Saitama said, scratching carelessly behind his ear, "isn't it normally a ring?"

"The typical 'diamond ring' proposal was actually invented by the Tiffany Diamond Company in the late 1930s and early 1940s," Genos replied, voice thick with an obnoxious, all-knowing tone, "and wasn't considered an absolute necessity the way it is now until very recently. Similarly, the tradition of white wedding dresses - "

"Right, got it," Saitama said, successfully cutting his pupil off. "So after that - she wanted to make it look like an accident, right? Or, no," he corrected himself hastily as Genos opened his mouth to speak again, "she made it look like a _suicide_. Clever, if fucked up."

"And she carved out a deep hole in the wall to hide the murder weapon in, and then covered it up and killed herself in shame," Mumen finished, clicking his pen with an air of finality, "I was looking up the old floor plans of the house, and apparently, most of the walls were refurbished shortly afterwards - those walls were basically tiled with marble less than a month later. So when the current owner decided to restore this house for historical use, and the tile was finally removed, the source was less trapped and it could get loose."

"Yup," Saitama yawned. "Anyway, I need a nap. Do you guys mind if I get a quick kip under the table?"

"There's a couch on that side of the room," Genos supplied helpfully, pointed down the ballroom's enormous length, "I was thinking about lying down, but you can go first."

"Oh, sweet. Thanks, Genos." He gave a warm, lopsided smile, stood up, and patted him absentmindedly on the shoulder. "Good work tonight, guys," he added, and shuffled off towards respite.

Genos and Mumen drank their tea in relative silence. But it wasn't the awkward silence of the early evening - it was warm, companionable peace, the easy quiet of two young men who had spent several hours nearly dying on one another's grace. They didn't know each other, but they knew their trust hadn't been misplaced.

xx

It was early morning, maybe five thirty, when the three boys walked out the huge double doors - and, surprisingly, onto a small, anxious crowd of photographers and reporters. "I guess this place must've been a bigger deal than we thought," Saitama whispered quietly to Mumen.

Wordlessly, both boys glanced over their shoulders back towards the doors, where Genos was lagging behind. His tall, handsome figure and crisp, uniform clothes cut sharply against the elegant white stone and red wood of the entrance, silver accents glinting in the early morning sun. Cameras, conscious of a good photo opportunity when they saw one, snapped in an affectionate chorous. Saitama's neck felt hot. He was suddenly aware that he and Mumen were decidedly underdressed.

Reporters surged through the crowd, spoke quickly, voices clicking and running together as they asked for professional statements, official verdicts, candid photos of the youngest and newest member of the team. The older two boys didn't mind so much - it made sense that Genos would get more press, given that he was wearing official Agent gear and generally looked more photogenic than the two of them. Besides, the press was never around for long - _they_ certainly hadn't ever had any luck with it. Probably just attention for the estate.

Throughout the proceedings, Genos kept an eye on Mumen. Over the course of the night, a thought had formed, and he wasn't sure it was one he was going to like.

The old familiar stink of suspicion was beginning to creep up his back.


End file.
